Namaste, Dilli!

At Delhi Dallying, we converse and engage with the city through writing, talking, walking and design interventions.

As practicing architects and graphic designers, our work is informed by our academic learning about the city. Our content is built on the anchors of heritage and history with overlays of contemporary culture, the stories of people and their lives. We focus on experiences rather than things, on the interaction and co-evolution of our built and social environments.

Mostly, we like telling stories about that grey bit of magic that emerges when people, places and their histories come together. For this reason, design and architecture enthusiasts and practitioners have been particularly interested in the work that we do.

Delhi Dallying is Bhavika, Rohan and Varun. They graduated from the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi in 2013.

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Over the years, we have partnered with business and academic institutions to deliver curated experiential content situated in different neighbourhoods of the city.

Walking Tours

We have been commissioned to conduct walking tours for students from New York University, Würzburg University, Royal College of Art, School of Planning and Architecture (New Delhi), as well as the Office of the President of India.

Delhi Dallying conceived and curated the first two editions of the Delhi Walk Festival, arguably the country’s first and largest walking tour festival. Commissioned by Delhi I Love You, the idea emerged from Delhi Dallying’s #Walktober.

We have also curated a series of events for the School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi.

Notes from the field

Going Offsite

Offsites is a series of intimate conversations unpacking and discussing the work and life paths of SPA alumni who are doing other things.

If you went to architecture school and despite that, you felt like building buildings wasn’t the thing for you (at least not in the context it was presented to you), this is your story. At any point, while not practising architecture, if your architecture education has come to serve you in unexpected or serendipitous ways, this is your story.

Apart from achieving the scale that they did (80 walks in 2015 and 180 in 2016, each with over 1200 participants), the highlights for us were the walking tours that we were able to co-invent with new partners. Some of our favourites below:

An ecologist and a landscape architect came together to do a foraging tour followed by a meal with foraged ingredients at a restaurant nearby.

An oral historian from the family of legendary bookshop owners led people through their neighbourhood with stories from the bookshop.

A street magician created a tour through his neighbourhood that was slated to be demolished.

A visually impaired entrepreneur blindfolded participants and led them through their senses of sound, smell, and touch.

On hiatus

With full-time employment and other ventures keeping us busy, we no longer conduct regular walking tours.

We’re still enthusiastic about the city and its complexities, so please do reach out to us at hello@delhidallying.com or through our Instagram if you would like to discuss other ways to collaborate.